In many agricultural applications, different particulate materials such as seed, fertilizer, inoculates and other seed treatments are applied to a field in controlled amounts at simultaneous or different times. Strictly controlled rates of application are often critical to optimize crop yield and to efficiently make use of the applied particulate material. To apply these types of agricultural particulate materials in controlled amounts, conventional systems are generally comprised of a tank for containing the particulate material, and a metering device. In these systems, the metering device receives the particulate material from the tank, and meters and delivers this material at a controlled rate to the soil.
Air seeders are commonly used to apply agricultural particulate material and are often comprised of a wheeled or tracked seed cart that includes one or more frame-mounted tanks for holding seed or fertilizer or both. This type of seeder also generally comprises a metering system used to dispense particulate material from the tanks and a pneumatic distribution system for delivering the products from the tanks to the soil.
Several different types of air seeders are available, including double shoot air seeders and triple shoot air seeders. Double shoot air seeders are often used to deposit both fertilizer and seed into the soil in a single pass. Generally, double shoot air seeders comprise a collector/distribution assembly positioned below each product tank (i.e., seed tank and fertilizer tank), each collector/distribution assembly having at least a pair of vertically spaced loading zones, i.e., an upper loading zone and a lower loading zone. Each loading zone has its own air stream passing transversely therethrough for delivering either the seed or the fertilizer to the furrowing elements. The furrowing elements are generally arranged to deposit the seed and fertilizer into the ground at slightly different locations, to prevent too much fertilizer from being in contact with the seed in the early stages of seed growth.
Generally, a diverter mechanism is used to dictate which loading zone will be in use, i.e., which loading zone will be open and which loading zone will be closed. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,599, the diverter mechanism comprises a series of diverter flaps that are actuated with an externally mounted handle. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,283,679, the diverter mechanism comprises a horizontally adjustable slide having two positions to divert product into either an upper or lower receiving air stream.
However, the aforementioned designs either require a complex multitude of diverter valves with a complex linkage between valves so that all can be adjusted at once or a slide mechanism which may result in only partial coverage of a particular loading zone. It is also important for a farmer to be able to completely close off one air stream when metering into the other, to avoid unwanted mixing of products in the air streams. Thus, when using a multitude of diverter valves, they all must be aligned properly and linkages adjusted and set carefully in order to ensure that one air stream is sealed off from the other.
Also, with the prior art diverter designs, there is a tendency to have air leaking between air streams due to the difficulty of getting the internal flaps set properly. Thus, there is a need for a diverter system that will maintain isolation between the pairs of air distribution systems and accomplish true separation of the air streams.
Furthermore, the collector/distribution assemblies described in the prior art generally require a separate element (e.g., clean out floor 70 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,599), which needs to be removed for clean out of the collector/distribution assembly. The present invention combines selection and clean out in a single selector device which is simple to operate and avoids unwanted mixing.